


Chapter II-The Climb

by it_is_I_the_Grate_Bad



Series: Star Wars: Struggles of the Fallen [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, star wars revenge of the sith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27810706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/it_is_I_the_Grate_Bad/pseuds/it_is_I_the_Grate_Bad
Summary: As Jedi General Jor Takara and his padawan Indiga Nakia have touched down on the northern hemisphere of Christophsis and are preparing to launch their assault on the city of Gemstein. Indiga is worried for how her mission will commence, and she still has her nightmare looming in her mind, wondering what it could mean...
Series: Star Wars: Struggles of the Fallen [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882576





	Chapter II-The Climb

Star Wars: The Struggles of the Fallen  
Chapter II: The Climb  
Indiga clutched onto the hanging handles of the gunship as it rocked and jerked down through the atmosphere of Christophsis. She could feel the temperature dropping as they descended, even under her winter robes. The clones she stood with were wearing snow gear as well, with their respective markings painted over.  
“Hanging in there, Blaster?” Zap asked, nudging his brother, who was grasping onto the handles with both hands.  
“So far, yeah…” he responded with a heavy voice. “I think I might puke.”  
“Come on, I thought we all got over this during training,” Crow said with a nudge.  
“I think you were right about those rations, Crow.”  
The ship was rattled by a sudden explosion, and they could all hear heavy cannon narrowly fire passing them by. Indiga calmed herself down, but she couldn’t help but think about that cursed vision again, of the laughter that accompanied it. It was like her mind wanted her to think about it…  
The gunship touched down, and as the light turned green, the side doors opened up, letting in a blast of freezing air and snow. Indiga pulled her scarf and goggles over her face and put up her hood, then stepped out onto the frozen surface. Gemstein was a northern city in Christophsis and faced heavy snow year-round. Conditions were forecasted to improve, but it wasn’t likely.  
She quickly ignited her lightsaber and deflected a sudden barrage of red blaster bolts. She quickly found cover among a pillar of crystal along with more of her men. They couldn’t see anything in this blizzard, but they had to take out these droids if they wished to take the city. One clone stuck his head out from behind the pillar to check if he could see anything, but he was quickly shot.  
“Deedee!” another clone cried in despair.  
“I’m gonna draw their fire. You guys watch where those droids are coming from and shoot to kill!” another clone said as he cocked his weapon.  
“Seven, no!” Blaster protested, but it was too late. The clone had already ran out into the blizzard, and was pelted with red blaster fire. He sprinted across the frozen field, blaster bolts barely missing him.  
“Come on, let’s not waste his sacrifice!” Crow said as he peeked out form behind the pillar and began firing at where the bolts were coming from. Indiga nodded at the rest of her men, and they did the same. After a few minutes of firing, the bolts stopped.  
The clones spread out across the field. Seven limped back through the blizzard to the main group.  
“You alright, Seven?” Indiga asked.  
“Yeah, got hit in the leg. I’ll be fine,” he responded. The medic, a clone named Stitch, got under his shoulder and helped him across the field. Indiga reached out with the force to look ahead. She felt that they were entering the city through a back road, and there were several droid patrols guarding their path.  
“Come on, let’s move out. Stitch, you get Seven looked at,” Indiga ordered, and they started down the main road.  
“Indiga? Indiga, are you there?” Master Takara’s voice crackled through the com system. Indiga slipped the scarf off of her mouth and pressed the call button.  
“I read you master. What’s going on?”  
“Have you made it to your objective point?”  
“Yeah, we just touched ground and passed through some guards. One man didn’t make it.”  
“I see. While walking up the road, keep sweeping for mines. We’ve come across some and are sustaining medium casualties.”  
“Noted. I’ll have them sweep ahead right away.”  
“Good luck, Indiga. May the Force be with you.”  
“May the Force be with you too.” Indiga switched off her commlink and pulled the scarf back over her mouth and nose.  
“Listen up, men! I’ve just received word that there could be mines laid out on the road before us. I need two of you to start sweeping the path ahead of us!”  
“Yes sir, right away!” one clone responded and nudged his brother. They quickly got out scanning devices and began sweeping the area ahead with blue light.  
“Looks like none so far…” Zap remarked. A sudden beeping stopped everyone in their tracks.  
“We’ve got one!” one of the scanning clones announced. The mine was highlighted in blue on the ground. “Everybody watch your step. There could be more of them.” The clones carefully steered themselves around the spot where the mine was and kept walking forward.  
A sudden barrage of more blaster fire caused everyone to leap for cover. Two more clones were killed.  
Indiga reached out with the force again and could sense the droid’s presence. She felt its mechanical fingers wrap around the trigger of its blaster and pull it. Quick as lightning, she swung her lightsaber forward, deflected the bolt, and it whizzed back and struck the droid square in the chest.  
“Can’t you do something about the visibility? Push some of the storm around so we can see?” Crow asked her.  
“What? No, we can’t control the weather.”  
“Could you at least try? We can’t see a thing like this,” another clone pleaded. Indiga, not wanting to cause a fight, relented and weakly pushed against the wind with the Force. Her body tensed tight and her arms shook against the force of nature that was the blizzard. Soon, however, she gave and the winds kept blowing cold.  
Three hours passed of a near constant cycle. Walking through the blizzard, hardly able to see anything. Taking cover from enemy fire. Firing in their general direction until the firing stopped. Keeping on trudging through the snow.  
At last, the clones reached the main part of Gemstein, where Takara and his men were facing the enemy head on.  
“Go, go, go!” Crow shouted as the clones began to fire into the droid armies coming towards them. Indiga ignited her bright green lightsaber and began deflecting bolts back at the enemy. Soon, she saw B-1 battle droids approaching her position, and she quickly cut through them. As she sliced through them, she felt that something dangerous was quickly rushing towards her.  
“Watch those wrist rockets!” a clone shouted as an explosion rocked the floor. Indiga leaped out of the way as a barrage of wrist rockets whizzed towards them. Blaster bolts from several B-2 battle droids rained down with the snow. She quickly threw her lightsaber into the crowd of droids, cutting down several, and then force-pushing several more. The clones blasted into the coming hoards, and soon enough, after constant pushing, they took the city of Gemstein.  
As the clones set up campsites in the courtyard, Indiga met with her master.  
“Did you have a difficult time getting up here?” he asked her.  
“Yes, we did.”  
“How many did you lose?”  
“We don’t know yet, but it was at least five, maybe seven men down. More wounded.”  
“I see. Well, a bulk of your forces made it through, and they seem to be in good spirits. All things considered, you did very well.”  
“Thank you, master.”  
“Now that the main city is back under our control, our focus shifts to the base. As was stated in your plan, the base itself is too well-guarded for a frontal attack, so you’re going in via stealth mission. You remember your plan?”  
“Yes, master.”  
“Good. We have all of the equipment you require over here, and I’ll be seeing you off momentarily.”  
After an hour of prepping, Indiga and her men stood at the edge of the city overlooking the intimidating maze of jagged, snow and ice-covered crystals. Indiga couldn’t help but feel anxious about her coming mission, and of her vision from that morning.  
“Are you ready to move out, Commander?” Zap asked.  
“Yeah, I-I jus-”  
“Come on, are you still feeling bad about the plan? We went over it a hundred times, it’ll go fine,” Crow said, nudging her back.  
“Yeah, I know, it’s… it’s just that I…”  
“You what?” Crow asked.  
“I just… feel like something terrible is going to happen to us.”  
“What do you mean ‘something terrible’?” Blaster asked. She gathered the three, along with her other men, around her and told them of her vision. They all seemed shocked.  
“Wait a minute, we’re all wearing purple armor,” a clone named Skull remarked.  
“Indiga, you don’t think that we would ever turn on you, do you?” another asked.  
“I can’t control my dreams!” she said defensively.  
“Indiga, nobody is attacking you. We just want you to feel safe around us.” Zap said.  
“Yeah, we’re your family, right?” Blaster exclaimed. The other clones all muttered in agreement.  
“We’re right behind you, kid, all the way to the end,” another clone named Duke said.  
“Thanks, men. Now, let’s get to that base!” Indiga and her men all stood up excitedly and staked down their descension cables to climb down the city and onto the spikes.  
“Indiga?” Takara, who stood behind her, said. He was standing with Commander Rigby.  
“Yes, master?” she asked.  
“Remember, no matter what happens out there, trust only in the Force.”  
“Yes, master. Goodbye, and may the Force be with you.”  
“May the Force be with you as well.” The two bowed to each other.  
“Give ‘em hell out there for me, Indiga,” Rigby said.  
“I’ll try my best, Rigby,” she replied with a smirk. Takara and Rigby turned and walked back to the city as Indiga leaped down to join her men. 

For nearly three miles, Indiga and the twelve clones climbed over sharp, pointed crystals covered in slick ice and snow. Their gloves and coats protected them from the cold, but the wind was another story. It whipped over their bodies and whistled loudly in their ears. Indiga looked over the edge of one crystal but could not see the base, for it was still fifteen miles away. She gritted her teeth beneath her scarf as she heaved her body over another sharp crystal and slid down the other side, catching herself with her feet on the wall of another crystal.  
To climb over these hard structures, for a Jedi it was a matter of jumping over them while still keeping your head low. For the clones, however, it was a different story. A combination of ascension cables and climbing claws on the hands and feet of their armor allowed them to scale the small mountainous spikes. As they journeyed deeper and deeper over the maze, the crystals began jutting out at odder angles and became much larger. Climbing became far more of a challenge.  
With about eight miles to go, Indiga could sense the faint outline of the base in the distance.  
“Any sign of bombers?” she called back.  
“None!” Zap called back. “Wait, we’ve got something coming in!”  
Soon, Indiga could sense something zooming towards them in the skies above. She looked up and saw the faint outline of a hyena bomber circling towards them.  
“Get down!” she ordered, and she and her men quickly took cover underneath the crystals. A blue flash of light shone overhead, and an explosion rocked the area. Snow and ice fell from the crystals. Soon, there was a loud crash as the bomber fell from the sky and into the nearby maze.  
“Stay low and stay sharp! They could be coming at any moment!” Indiga reminded the clones as they continued climbing.  
Another two miles passed, and another pair of bombers whizzed overhead. The clones took cover again, and a torrent of bombs rocked their bodies. Indiga clutched at her beating heart, trying to calm herself down. Another flash of blue light shone as the AT-TE shot down the bombers. A distant crash, and they were no more.  
Four miles to go in the climb, and Indiga could see the outline of the base in the distance, great and terrible. As they climbed up a very precarious crystal, one clone lost his footing and fell down into the maze below.  
“Reeve!” a clone called out, lamenting his lost brother.  
Indiga leaped down into the maze and ignited her lightsaber, lighting the dark crystal maze. The snow was thinner down here, and the light from her green lightsaber bounced beautifully off the crystal walls. She scanned the area, and found the clone, Reeve, on the ground. The fall had broken his neck, yet his body was laying in a way that was oddly peaceful. She silently mourned his loss, gathered up his viable supplies, then jumped back up to the main group.  
“I’m so sorry,” she said to the clone who had called out for Reeve. His name was Ice.  
A blaster bolt whizzed out from the base and struck Ice in the face.  
The clones quickly took cover underneath another crystal as sniper fire rained down on them.  
“All of this trouble for such a small team? You’d think we were the entire army given how much fire we’re under!” Crow complained.  
“Crow, now’s not the time!” Zap yelled back. “We’ve gotta take care of these snipers!”  
“I’ll see if I can mark any of them!” another clone named Specs said. He carefully craned his head up and scanned the horizon with his macrobinoculars, counting how many snipers were lined up on the base.  
“I see eight snipers, all of them commando droids. We’re gonna have a tough time taking them down,” he reported.  
“And since they’ve spotted our position, they’ll be coming for us with more bombers!” Blaster said.  
“Then we have to move quicker!” Indiga shouted.  
“Are you crazy? You’re the only one who can move so quickly under these conditions, the rest of us are just normal people!” Zap cried back.  
“I’m sticking with you guys, and I can try to help you move quicker, but you need to be patient! I can only lift you one at a time!”  
“This isn’t gonna work,” another clone muttered to themselves.  
“It’ll work fine,” another clone replied.  
“Who’s the snipers here?” she asked. Skull and another clone named Jock stepped forward. “You two are coming up first so you can fire at those snipers!”  
Indiga jumped over a pillar and quickly began deflecting blaster fire with her lightsaber. She lifted Skull and then Jock over the crystal.  
“Cover me!” she ordered.  
“Yes ma’am!” he replied and began firing at where the sniper fire was coming from. She soon lifted the other eight men over the crystal, and they all immediately took cover again.  
“Indiga, we aren’t gonna be able to keep this up for too long. We’re getting warn out,” Zap informed her.  
“Don’t run out of fuel yet, Zap! We’re almost to the finish line!” Blaster said, punching him in the arm. Indiga repeated the process several times with the clones for the rest of the stretch to the base. Finally, they reached the base of the tall crystalline structure that was housing the CIS droid armies. They launched their ascension cables up into the hangar, and Blaster prepared his missile launcher. If any bombers remained, he’d blast them.  
Quickly, the clones and Indiga ascended up the side of the cliff and into the hangar, where they were greeted with hoards of battle droids. Blaster launched a rocket into the side of a bomber, and then another into the heart of the crowd of droids. Indiga blocked a volley of blaster fire, and the clones all fired back into the battalion. Two clones sadly died, but the hangar was soon cleared. They knew they could not stay for long, so they opened up the door for a hallway that lead up into the main command center for the base. They met more droids and quickly cut through them, and they soon reached the headquarters.  
Zap quickly began deactivating everything he could, before he suddenly tensed up.  
“Hey, where are those commando droids?” he asked. Indiga quickly ignited her lightsaber as the answer to his question burst through the door. Four commando droids sprinted in the room and opened fire. Indiga cut through one, but the other unsheathed his vibroblade and began fighting her. After a few scared blocks, she found an opening in the droid’s defenses and sliced through its midsection. The other clones, through concentrated gunfire, shot the other two droids.  
“Keep a watch on both entrances, men. There could be more of them.” Indiga and Zap quickly worked at shutting down the defenses for the base. At last, the shields were down and the remaining Republic forces could come and invade the base. Indiga sat down on the floor, resting her back on the side of one of the consoles.  
She sat down, thinking of the vision she had in her nightmare. She couldn’t quite place where the cackling came from, but its voice sounded rather familiar…  
Her thoughts were interrupted by a beeping noise from her commlink. It was her master.  
“Master Takara, we’ve taken the base. All of the defenses are lowered, but there may still be a droid presence here.”  
“I understand, Indiga. We’re nearly there now. Keep the defenses tight, and watch for more droids. This battle is not over yet, my padawan, but I feel it may be close.”  
“Yes, master.”  
“How many men are still with you?”  
“We’re numbering only around six left.”  
“I see. I’m so sorry, but these things will happen in war. It is good that you and your other six men survived.”  
Another commlink began to beep.  
“Yes, as am I. These men mean a lot to me.”  
“They mean a lot to me, too. These men deserve worlds better than what they’re given.”  
Zap answered his beeping commlink.  
“I only wish I could do more to honor their sacrifice,” Indiga confessed.  
“As do I, but all we can give them now is our trust and support.”  
“Execute Order Sixty-Six,” a low, raspy old voice. Indiga suddenly recognized where the cackling came from.  
“Yes, My Lord.” Zap answered.  
Indiga leaped up from her spot, already sweating and trembling in fear. The clones all turned and looked at each other and nodded solemnly.  
“Guys? What are you doing? What was that call for?”  
The clones all robotically raised their blasters and pointed them at her.


End file.
